Tom Phillips: Explicating A Humument

On page 305 of Tom Phillips’ A Humument, Phillips creates an image of what remains when love and desire is gone. Phillips uses vibrant colors that stand out on the page. Each color creates an emotion of the main character, Toge. The colors range from dark to light. The dark colors symbolizing death and sadness. The light colors display a sense of healing, life and wisdom. Phillips also uses words to show the emotion displayed on the page.

Phillips starts the page by mentioning the state of the main character, Toge. In the portrait a figure resembling person is sitting by himself on a chair in what seems to be an empty room. He writes “only toge alone”. This is emphasized in the picture of the person sitting in the chair in an empty room.

Towards the middle of the page Phillips writes about the characters loneliness. He writes “loneliness is throb of my watch.” to describe his loneliness. The main character feels alone and empty but this brings Toge excitement and other emotions. His heart is beating faster. This is displayed in the color of the room. The vibrant colors provide the page with a sense of excitement. The canary yellow creates light and brings life into the room even though the character is red. The yellow provides the shriveled figure with life and a sense of moving forward as well as healing from the loneliness. The word “throb” is essentially related to the heart and the color of the figure sitting in the chair is similar to the color of a heart, red. The blood red could have a whole array of meanings like death, love, blood and passion. In this case it symbolizes love. This leads to believe that Toge was alone because he lost his love.

The next few words from the middle part of the page say “long shriveled aspiration”. In the literal sense the passage means that his loneliness is a helpless or useless desire. As he aims for what he wants, which is to get rid of his loneliness, Toge realizes that there is no use, the chance has withered away. In the painting this is created by making the figure of the man seem distorted and withered. The figure is shriveled and seems to almost be gone. Phillips also places the figure of the man sitting on the chair in front of what seems to be an open window. The open window symbolizes the “aspirations” that Toge wants to acquire. By placing the man in front of the window shows that he longs for something that he used to have or wants to have.

The last words of Phillips Humument create a sense that Toge maybe alone but he still has some things that he treasures. Phillip writes “my viola” as the first thing that he has been left with. The viola provides Toge with music and the emotion that he creates when using the viola. The instrument provides him with healing that he needs because he is alone. Then Phillips writes “the other thing your image I cannot get rid of it” as Toge’s second thing that he is left with. Even though he doesn’t have his actual love with him, he can still see what his love looks like. He has kept that image within him forever even though now he is lonely.

Overall, in this art piece Phillips displays an emotion that seems to be lasting. His loneliness is not forever as Phillips mentions that Toge has two things left. Phillips creates this through his painting. The vibrant colors bring life into the words. The colors of red and yellow help to make the words real. Red symbolizes the “throb” that he feels and yellow is the “aspiration” that he has lost. Phillips A Humument of page 305 is emotional but yet very exciting.